If you think to buy Sicilian shoes, I suggest that you read this post. Here, I explained some important features about Sicily’s shoes you must absolutely know before performing your purchase. At the end, you’ll be perfectly aware about typology, price, and quality of the Sicilian shoes you want.
Original Sicilian Shoes: Dream or Reality?
As happens for many Sicilian products, Sicily’s shoes are also in high demand. But this product does not belong to Sicily’s tradition. I know about many traditional products made in Sicily. Many of them represent the history of the Sicilian people, such as coffa bag or coppola, but not shoes.
That is only a modern evolution of marketing, a concept set up to sell.
As a Sicilian who loves search and spread truthful information, I wrote this post just to let you know the truth about this much requested product.
Information About the History of Sicilian Shoes
The poor information we Sicilians have about traditional shoes are contained in the Sicilian literature. In the past centuries, Sicily was a land of poor peasants and devout women. Men went to work with country shoes made of hard leather to resist the sun and the soil of Sicily.
Women, instead, used sandals to stay at home and low heel shoes to go to the church. The low heel shoes were made of cotton fabric. They were called Espadrillas (see the image). This kind of shoes has a Spanish origin.
A modern version of the Sicilian espadrillas is made of leather or cool fabric. These shoes are called softwalks, because they have a flat heel. This type of shoe is also known as ballet flat. Softwalks are comfortable shoes you can wear for the whole day.
The style of the ancient Sicilian Sunday shoes, instead, was the one of funerals, namely black, low, and matt shoes.
If you came across these shoes, you would have done better to buy the velvet shoes of Spanish tango dancers, in that time.
One of the most expert scholars about Sicily, Giuseppe Pitrè, in one book about the history of my island, describes a creepy detail about Sicilian shoes. In short, he reveals that the ancient Sicilian pilgrims wore iron shoes to atone for their sins.
In a sort of twisted oath, vow, or promise to God, they used to walk on foot, from their villages to distant churches and sanctuaries, with heavy and horrible iron shoes!
The walk was, obviously, a torture and they always arrived in the sacred destination with bleeding feet severely injured! Despite the unbearable pain and suffering, they were happy to cleanse their soul, even though, often, someone of the pilgrims died of severe bacterial infection caused by the injures!
This cruel tradition was fueled by stupidity, false faith, and illiteracy.
Indeed, due to extreme poverty, many Sicilian people couldn’t afford to go to school, but only to work at the farms of landlords. Their critical social condition was the main cause of this ancestral tradition.
Fortunately, these dark times ended long ago in Sicily.
The island is today a lively and creative land with very creative artisans who craft everything you want: jewels, souvenirs, bags and even shoes.
Sicily’s Shoes Style
To envision the style of the Sicilian shoes, we must come back to the Arab age, because the modern shoes with a Sicilian style are inspired right by this ancient civilization. The Arabs, indeed, loved brilliant and vivid colours.
They painted and decorated palaces and mosques with stunning arabesques. These decorations consisted of multicolored images painted with very creative shapes, such as circles, frames, rhombuses, leaves and so on.
Afterwards, arabesques started decorating every Sicily’s traditional product: Sicilian carts, bags, clothes, and, nowadays, shoes. However, as said, shoes don’t belong to the Sicilian tradition, they are only a style used by many artisans all over the world, even Sicilians, to pay homage to my island.
For this reason, you can buy Sicilian shoes, or rather, shoes with a Sicilian style, everywhere.
Sicilian Shoes Online
If you desire shoes made in Sicily, there are many online shops managed by talented Sicilian artisans. But leather and high hell shoes are expensive, sometimes, and cost from 130 to 300 euros.
However, there are two Sicilian online shops where you can find cheap cotton sandals and softwalks made in Sicily. These are the shop of Marzia, an artisan from Palermo and the Sicilian shop of Le Ragazze Pon Pon.
Furthermore, to have a Sicilian style, shoes must be crafted with:
- quality materials, such as leather, velvet or very resistant fabric;
- brilliant colours, or arabesques recalling the Arab domination in Sicily;
- Sicilan themes, such as flowers, embroidery, lemons, pom, poms or Sicily’s flag.
The two last decorations are often on sandals and sport shoes called sneakers.
There are many brands around the world that craft stunning shoes with a Sicilian style. One of them is Clarks. That is a British brand with has shops and branches even in Sicily. Clarks sells awesome, quality shoes for women, men, children and snearkers, such as the so called Sillian. Many of them are crafted with a Sicilian style, with resistant materials and shiny colours.
There is also an online shop where several artisans sell shoes with a Sicilian style. I checked these shoes and the models are beautiful, handmade and with a very high quality.
I saw Swarovski decorations and embroidered women’s shoes! These shoes are not made in Sicily, but they represent the perfect Sicilian style with colored details. You can see many of these models at this online shop. There, you can also buy marvelous satin shoes for your wedding.
There is even an online shop which sells shoes for babies with a Sicilian style.
Try to buy your favorite shoes with a Sicilian style on the online shops I mentioned in this post and let me know about your experience.
Photocredit: Etsy
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Rosalba Mancuso is a freelance journalist born in Sicily. Passionate about her loved island and with extensive writing experience, Rosalba worked as a contributor for the main Sicily’s newspapers and as a bilingual Italian – English writer. Thanks to her skills, she also founded four websites in English. On Sicilyonweb, Rosalba tells every corner of her beloved Sicily. Furthermore, she writes this blog thanks to your help. Rosalba, in fact, earns a small commission, with no cost for you, when you book your travel or buy products through the affiliate widgets or links you find in her posts.
Hi! I’m in desperate need of a women’s sneaker made by Rise. It’s called the Multi Rabbit sneaker. It’s being sold in a little shop in Savoca, am wondering if you’ve heard of it?!
Hi Sheri,
Yes, there may be a similar shoe shop in Savoca, but I have never heard about that.
You should visit the village, to find it.
However, you can also find the product you need elsewhere or online. Try on this website https://www.scarparossa.com/rise-shoes-sneaker-multi-rabbit-rose.html.
I think this online shop has the exact shoes you want.